Jauss Review Toward

7/27/2019 Jauss Review Toward

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Toward an Aesthetic of Reception. by Hans Robert Jauss; Timothy Bahti; Paul de Man

Review by: Michael SprinkerMLN, Vol. 97, No. 5, Comparative Literature (Dec., 1982), pp. 1205-1212Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2905985 .

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nicateor not to fornicate: hat s the question" (842a). "A cohabitationof Sig-mund Freud andJesus,notwithout onflict r confusion" smentioned 23 la).6 See "Montal, Robert" (542b), writtenby Frickx's friend and sometime col-laborator, Robert Burniaux. The other three contributorswith entries areCzeshawMilosz, Philippe Sellers,and Paul de Wispeleare.7 On Espaia peregrinasee Paul Ilie,Literaturend nnerExile:Authoritarianpain,1939-1975 (Baltimore:JohnsHopkins University ress, 1981).8 Peyrealso punches Romain Rolland ("inelegantstyle,"psychological shallow-ness")and MichelFoucault who"has retoldthehistoryf themodernage in animperiously rbitrary ashion"). Peyre's grand gestures brightly ispel the illu-sion thatone scholaralone, grown greatwith earning, an speak for all of 20thcenturyFrench literature.9 The geographicexclusivityf theGermansurvey mits nymentionof Frisch'sand Diirrenmatt's onsiderable influencethroughoutpostwarGerman litera-ture.

Hans RobertJauss,Toward n AestheticfReception.ranslatedby TimothyBahti,withan introduction yPaul de ManMinneapolis: University f MinnesotaPress, 1982. xxix + 218 pages"Foreveryecond n timewasthe mall oorthrough hichtheMessiahmighttep."-Walter Benjamin

The appearance in English of a collectionof Hans RobertJauss's essayswas probablyoverdue. As Timothy Bahti remarks in the Translator'sPreface to the presentvolume, the already well-knownwork of Jauss'scolleague Wolfgang ser has led to a somewhatskewedunderstanding nthe English-speakingworld of the nature of the collectiveprojectof theKonstanz group, an understandingthathas largelyobscured "the morehistoricalosition" p. xxvii)representedbyJauss.WithBahti's translationof thefiveJauss essays ncludedhere,and with heforthcomingranslationbyMichael Shaw ofJauss'scollection,AsthetischerfahrungndLiterarischeHermeneutikto be published in the same series on Theory and History fLiteraturefromMinnesota,of whichToward n AestheticfReceptions thesecond volume to appear), the picture should change considerably.Though theremaybe importantdistinctionsnd differences mong themembers of the Konstanz group-according to Paul de Man's introduc-tion,they re "a liberalassociationof scholars, nformally nitedbymeth-odological concerns that allow for considerable diversity" p. vii)-it isdoubtful that any adequate descriptionof the common methodologicalcommitment hatunitesthem, ustomarily eferred o as Rezeptionsdsthetik,could omit consideration of the programmaticrevisionof conventionalliteraryhistory hatJauss'swork undertakes.Moreover,as numerous in-stances from current debates within iterary heoryand philosophywill

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1206 REVIEWSattest,the nature of historicalunderstandingremains among the mostvexed areas of inquirywithin he human sciences.Jauss's particular nter-ventionwithinthe field of literary heorymeritsdetailed considerationtherefore,not merelybecause of its associationwith what is most oftencalled in America"reader response criticism," ut for the signalclarifica-tions tcan offer oncerningthe relationship f history o theory.The claimof the Konstanz group on the attention f literary heoristsrests, s Paul de Man suggests nhis udicious introduction,n their bold-ness .. incallingtheir pproach a poetics s wellas a hermeneutics"p. x).It is the attemptto achieve a general theoryof "literariness"withintheconfines of the historical discipline of hermeneutics that causes theKonstanz programmeof researchto stand out againstthebackgroundofmoreahistorical ormalismsnd traditionaliterary istorywhichhas beengenerally positivistic.The sources (in Gadamer's hermeneutics and inphenomenology)and the implications foraesthetic nd linguistic heory)of thisprogramme s exemplified nJauss'sworkare described n Paul deMan's introduction, nd so it willnot be necessaryto duplicate thatde-scriptionhere. Rather, tmaybe more useful to examine in some detailJauss's critiqueof those formsof historical riticismwhich de Man doesnot treatat length. In particular,Jauss's polemic againstMarxism,hererepresentedby Lukacs, deserves carefulconsideration.The questionwillbe complicatedby the fact thatJauss often cites with approval WalterBenjamin,whose associationwithMarxism s byno means unproblematic,butwhosecredentials s a theoretician f historicalmaterialism re unde-niable. That Benjamin's criticismwould offerno aid or comfortto anaesthetics f reception as Paul de Man argues), reinforces he suspicionthat the polemical positionJauss takeswithrespectto Marxist aestheticscannot be understoodstraightforwardlys merelyoppositional.Jauss's critiqueof Lukacs comes in the manifesto-likessaythatopensToward nAestheticfReception,LiteraryHistory s Challenge [Provokation]to Literary heory."Beforeturning othis ssay,however, twillbe usefulto considerJauss's later critiqueof Marxism ("Literary Historyas Chal-lenge" was writtenn 1967), "The Idealist Embarrassment:Observationson MarxistAesthetics,"trans.PeterHeath,NewLiteraryistory [Autumn1975]). The essayopens by citingthe famouspassage on Greek art fromMarx's 1857 "Einleitung urKritik er politischenOkonomie." This,Jaussargues (and enlistsMarcuse in supportofhim),constituteshe dealist oreof Marxistaestheticswhich later reflection heory bandoned and whicheven contemporaryneo-Marxiantheoryobscuresby situating ll art pro-duced between Greek antiquity nd the communist ocietyof the futurewithin deology ("The Idealist Embarrassment,"p. 193). Jauss cites theEconomic ndPhilosophical anuscriptsf1844 to showthat thework ofartcould become a paradigmfor nonalienatedlaborwhich could uphold theidea of freeproductivitynd sense-changingeceptivityn periodsof alien-ated material abor" (p. 199). This concept of the workof art "does not



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remove the idealist embarrassment f Marx's passage about constructingaccordingto the laws of beauty,but elevates t into an indispensablecom-ponentof a materialist esthetic . ." (p. 200). But such a properlymateri-alistaestheticmust also account forthe historical ffectivityf artworks,and it is over thisquestion thatJauss splitswithcontemporaryMarxistaccountsof receptionthat construethe reader "as an idealized conscious-ness." Focusing on the work of Manfred Naumann and a group oftheorists romtheGerman DemocraticRepublic,Jausscriticizes hemfortheirneglectof "theconceptof concretization" nd concludes: "Intersub-jective categoriesare entirely ackingon the side of reception,so thatitcomes to seem as though receptive predetermination Rezeptionsvorgabe]. . . refers o the individualreceptionof the workbya universal eader .."(p. 205; Jauss's emphasis). The debate here is framed in termsof theeconomic categoriesof theGrundrisse,roductionand consumption, ndJauss'scase hingeson Marx's assertion hat notonlydoes productionpro-duce consumption,but that"Consumptionthusappears as a factor Mo-ment] f production" (Marx, "Einleitung"; cited byJauss, p. 206). The"idealist mbarrassment" fMarxist esthetics,whichcan only peak of thework of art n itsproductive apacity, s thusovercomethrough recogni-tion of "the reader's share," througha historical nquiry nto the actualreadings that worksof art have provoked in different ras and cultures.Marxist estheticswould seem to demand, in principle, he supplementa-tionof thehistory f reception.This formulation eads directly o the critiqueof Lukacs in "LiteraryHistory s Challenge." Lukacs's aesthetics s assimilated out ourt o reflec-tiontheory,whichJauss claims forecloses the possibility f graspingtherevolutionaryharacter of art. . ." (p. 14). This lostpossibility eemergesinJauss's argumentthroughan examinationof Russian and Czech For-malism,for t s theFormalists' undamental onceptof"estrangement" r"defamiliarization"ostraneniye),heconstitutiveppositionbetweenpoeticand ordinary anguage, thatdrives a wedge betweentheliteraryworkandits ocial ambienceand thus undoes theauthority freflectionheory.Thefurther xtensionof Formalistpoetics n a theory f literary istorys alsopraisedbyJauss,who discerns ntheir pposing of"a dynamicprincipleofliteraryvolutiono the classical concept of tradition"p. 17) the first teptoward the historical criticismhe advocates. Jauss's brief against For-malism,however,charges that the limitation f literaryhistory o a "suc-cession of systems"does not adequately account forthe historical peci-ficityfliteraryworks:"The historicityf literature oes not end with hesuccessionof aesthetic-formalystems; he evolutionofliterature,ikethatof language, is to be determinednot only immanently hroughits ownunique relationship f diachronyand synchrony, ut also through ts re-lationshipto the general processof history"p. 18). Both FormalismandMarxism fail "to bridge the gap between literature nd history" ecausethey"conceive the literaryactwithin he closed circle of an aestheticsof



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production nd ofrepresentation.n doing so, theydeprive iterature fadimensionthat nalienablybelongsto its aesthetic haracter s wellas to itssocial function: hedimensionof itsreception nd influence" p. 18). Theprojectof an aesthetics freceptionprovidesthismissing inkbetweentheliteraryworkand itssocial function nd makes a contribution o the gen-eral progressof history s "the ongoing totalization f the past throughaesthetic xperience [Erfahrung]"p. 20).That history s indeed "progressive"and that it can be seen to be sofromthe standpointof the present is the enabling conditionof Jauss'spostulationof an understandingof literaryhistory: The step fromthehistory f receptionof the individualwork to thehistory f literaturehasto lead to seeing and representing zusehen nddarzustellen]he historicalsequence of worksas theydetermineand clarify he coherence of litera-ture, to the extent that it is meaningful for us, as the prehistoryof its presentexperience [als Vorgeschichtehrer egenwdrtigenrfahrung]"(p. 20). In support of this theory of historical understanding,Jausscites the concluding sentences of Walter Benjamin's 1931 essay, "Lit-eraturgeschichte und Literaturwissenschaft," as he earlier had in-voked Benjamin's Uberden Begriff er Geschichtegainst Ranke's his-toricism.As the earlier passage makes clear, Jauss's critique of his-toricism s aligned withEnlightenmentphilosophyof history nd withSchiller'sfigureof the universalhistorian: In itsturning way fromtheEnlightenmentphilosophyof history, istoricismacrificednot only theteleologicalconstruction f universalhistory, ut also themethodologicalprinciplethat,accordingto Schiller,first nd foremostdistinguishes heuniversal historian and his method: namely, to join [zu verkniipfen-literally to knotor tie"]the pastwiththepresent'-an inalienableunder-standing,onlyostensibly peculative,thatthe historicistchool could notbrushasidewithout ayingfor t.. ." (p. 8). The notetothispassagedirectsthereader tothe seventh fBenajmin'sTheses n the hilosophyfHistory,fwhich t is assertedthat the critiqueof historicismhere"deliveredfromthe standpointof historicalmaterialism,eads unnoticedbeyond the ob-jectivism fthe materialistonceptionofhistory"p. 192,n. 19). Elsewhereit is apparent thatJauss is eager to dissociate Benjamin fromMarxisttheory see "Historyof Art and PragmaticHistory," pp. 65-66 in thepresentvolume),presumably ince,forJauss,Marxismcan only produce ateleological philosophyof history nd an essentialist heoryof art. But tocite thesisVII as evidenceofBenjamin'sovercoming even if"unnoticed")of thematerialist onceptionofhistoryfiihrtnvermerktiber enObjectivis-mus der materialistischeneschichtsauffassunginaus) is surely an odd-thoughrevealing-misreading of the text.In thesisVII, the explicittargetof Benjamin's polemic is the supposedobjectivityfhistoricism,n objectivityhat urns ut tobe thinly isguisedempathywiththe victors f history. or theenablingcondition of histori-cism is precisely he transmission f "cultural treasures" dieKulturgiiter),



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M L N 1209the"spoils" dieBeute)of culturalprogress Fortschritt).he visionofhistoryas continualdisaster sof courseclosely llied with he mage inthesis X ofthe angel, Klee's "Angelus Novus," whose wingshave been caught by astormblowingfrom Paradise: "This stormdriveshimirresistiblyntothefuture, owardwhichhisback isturned,whiletheheap ofruinsbeforehimgrowstoward theheavens. That whichwe call progress s this torm."But"progress"has yetanother name in the Theses:Social Democracy.Benja-min's ritique f historicismsalso a political nterventiongainsttheSPD, arecognition f their omplicityn thecomingto powerof Fascism.Againstthiscomplicity, istoricalmaterialism truggles y opposing the facile deaof historical progress,"which includes the embracingof technologicaldevelopmentby Social Democracyand the correspondingnotion of uni-versalhistoryn which historicismulminates thesisXVII).No one could be moreexplicitly pposed to the"ongoingtotalization fthepastthrough esthetic xperience"than theBenjaminof the Theses.Hewrites n thesisXVII: "The historicalmaterialist pproaches a historicalobject onlywhere he encounters t as a monad. In thisstructure e recog-nizes thesignofa messianicplacingatrest Stillstellung]fevents, r,toputit anotherway,a revolutionary rospect [Chance] n the strugglefor therepressed past. He seizes it in order to spring [sprengen] determi-nate epoch fromout of the homogeneous course of history;thus hespringsa determinate ife from theepoch, a determinateworkfrom thelifework. he yieldfrom hisprocedureconsistsn the fact hat nthe workthelifework,n thelifework heepoch, and in theepoch theentirecourseofhistorysdepositedand cancelledyetpreserved aufgehoben]."orJauss,the historical bject,thework or text, s not a monad but an event,which,ratherthanbeing "sprung" from the continuumof history,s integratedinto the "coherence of literature" p. 22) in the historicalprocess of itsreception.This process,farfrombeing arbitrary r subjective, an be ob-jectifiedwithsystematic igor: "If ... one defines the initialhorizon ofexpectations Erwartungshorizont]f a text s paradigmatic sotopy,which stransposed ntoan immanentsyntagmatic orizonof expectationsto theextent thatthe utterancegrows,then the process of receptionbecomesdescribable n the expansion of a semiotic ystem hataccomplishes tselfbetween thedevelopment nd the correction f a system.A correspondingprocessofthe continuousestablishing nd altering f horizonsalso deter-mines therelationship f the individual textto thesuccessionof texts hatforms hegenre.The new text vokes forthe reader (listener) hehorizonofexpectations nd rulesfamiliar rom arliertexts,which re thenvaried,corrected, ltered,or even ust reproduced" (p. 23). As in the Husserliantheoryof perceptionfromwhich t is derived,Jauss'smodel of receptioncollapses the temporal displacement produced bythe act of reading intowhatBenjamin called "homogeneous,emptytime."The misreadingand misappropriationof Benjamin extends to otheressays included in Towardan AestheticfReception,most notably n the



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concluding essay on Baudelaire's "Spleen," where Benjamin's positing ofthe allegorical structure of the Baudelairean lyric is interpolated as a his-toricist model connecting the present with the past by means of an aes-thetic mode: "To [Benjamin] we owe the insight that brought to light theburied connection [den verschiitteten usammenhang] between the oldertradition of allegory that declined after its last flowering in the baroque,and its reawakening in the Fleurs du mal" (p. 178). That allegory in Benja-min may not be an aesthetic (that is, phenomenal) mode at all, that it is,rather, specifically linguistic, is argued convincingly by Paul de Man (pp.xxii-xxiii). The consequences of this accommodation in Jauss's theory tothe "classical phenomenalism of an aesthetics of representation" (p. xxii)are by no means trivial, either for the reading of the Baudelaire poem inquestion or for the general theory of history which Jauss proposes. ForRezeptionsdsthetiko produce an authentically historical account of the textas event, itwould have to abandon just that postulation of the phenomenalstabilityof the textwhich is characteristic of the aesthetic as such and uponwhich its practice is founded. Despite Jauss's considerable animus againstMarxism, it is to a Marxist philosopher and his critique of historicism thatone turns most readily for the means to "spring" the event from the con-tinuum of history made homogeneous in Jauss's aesthetic totalization.To engage the work of Louis Althusser with that of Jauss, one maycompare two passages in which each seems to be making the same claim forthe "relative autonomy" of art. The firstpassage is taken from the conclu-sion to Jauss's essay, "History of Art and Pragmatic History":

the history f art is distinguishedfromotherspheresof historical eality ythefact hat n it the formation f the mmortals notonly visibly arriedout throughtheproductionofworks,but also throughreception,by tsconstantreenactmentof the enduring featuresof worksthatlong since have been committed o thepast.The history f art maintainsthisspecial statuseven if one concurs with theMarxist iterary heory hatart and literature annot claim any history f theirown,butonlybecome historical nsofar s theyparticipate n thegeneralprocessofhistorical raxis.The history f artkeeps itsspecial positionwithinpragmatichistory o the extentthat,throughthe mediumof perceptionand bymeans ofinterpretation, t can consciously bring forth [bewul3tu machenvermag]thehistorical apacityof "totalization,n whichhuman praxis incorporates mpulsesfrom the past and animatesthemthroughthisvery ntegration." otalization, nthe sense of "a process of production and reproduction, animation andrejuvenation," s presented n exemplaryformbythehistory f art p. 75).The second passage is from Althuser's "Letter on Art":

I do notrank ealart mong he deologies,lthoughart does have a quite particularand specificrelationshipwith deology.... Art I mean authentic rt,not worksof an average or mediocre level) does notgiveus a knowledgen the strictense, ttherefore does not replace knowledge (in the modern sense: scientificknowledge),but what it gives us does neverthelessmaintain a certainspecificrelationshipithknowledge.... I believethatthepeculiarity f art s to "make us



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see" [nousdonner voir], make us perceive,""make us feel" somethingwhichalludes o reality.... Whatartmakes us see,and therefore ivesto us in theformof "seeing," perceiving"nd 'feeling" which is not the formof knowing),s theideologyromwhich t s born, nwhich tbathes,fromwhich t detaches itself sart,and to which italudes.... Balzac and Solzhenitsyngive us a "view" of theideologyto which their work alludes and with which t is constantly ed,a viewwhichpresupposes a retreat,n internal istantiationromthe very deologyfromwhich theirnovels emerged. They make us "perceive" (but not know) in somesensefrom he nside,by an internal istance, he very deology in whichtheyareheld (Louis Althusser, A Letteron Art n Replyto Andre Daspre," inLeninandPhilosophynd Other ssays, rans. Ben Brewster New York, 1971],pp. 221-23).That this econd passage can be susceptible o an idealistreading s evidentfromTerry Eagleton'sterse udgment: "It is as thoughtheaestheticmuststillbe grantedmysteriously rivilegedstatus,but now in embarrassedlyoblique style" CriticismndIdeologyLondon, 1976], p. 84). Nonetheless,more carefulreading maydisclose a quite different onceptualoperationin Althusserfromthat nJauss.Here, as elsewhere, the crucial distinctionfor Althusser is betweenideologynd sciencewhichproducesknowledge).The Althusserian ritiqueof empiricismcharges traditionalepistemologywitha confusionin theobject of knowledge: "For the empiricist onception of knowledge,thewhole ofknowledge s thus nvested n the eal,and knowledgeneverarisesexceptas a relationnside tsrealobject etweenhe eally istinctarts f hat ealobject"Louis Althusser and Etienne Balibar,Reading Capital,trans.BenBrewster London, 1970], p. 39). Althusser ountersby claimingthat thereal object is not the same as theobjectof knowledge:"the realobject,ofwhichknowledge s to be acquired or deepened, remains hat t s,after sbefore the process of knowledge which involves it .. .; the deepening oftheknowledgeof this real object is achievedbya labour ftheoreticalrans-formation hichnecessarily ffects he object fknowledge,ince it is onlyapplied to thelatter" ReadingCapital,p. 156). This objectofknowledge snever, ikethereal object,simply there," hatwhich"is given,"butalwaysappears in the formof "the peculiar raw material":"i.e., matter lreadyelaborated and transformed, reciselyby the impositionof the complex(sensuous-technical-ideological)tructurewhichconstitutest as an object fknowledge,owevercrude, whichconstitutes t as the object it will trans-form,whoseformstwillchange inthecourse of tsdevelopmentprocess norder to produce knowledgeswhich are constantly ransformedut willalways pplytoitsobject,n the sense ofobject fknowledge"ReadingCapital,p. 43).In the passage fromthe "Letter on Art,"Althussercarefullydistin-guishes between the empirical process of perceptionseeing, perceiving,feeling, lluding-all formsof phenomenal representation, hus all prop-erlyaestheticfunctions), nd the quite different ognitive operation ofknowledge. rt presentsthe beholder or reader withphenomenal cogni-tions Erkenntnisse)hatplace ideologyat a distance-roughly thedisplace-



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1212 REVIEWSmentof thecontemporary orizonofexpectations ccomplishedbya worklikeMadameBovarynJauss'saccount ofitsreception "LiteraryHistory sChallenge," pp. 27-28; 42-44). But in order fora workof art tobecomean objectofknowledge Wissenschaft),t s not sufficientimply odescribe"thereceptionand the influenceof a workwithin heobjectifiable ystemof expectationsthatarises for each workin the historicalmomentof itsappearance .. ." ("LiteraryHistory s Challenge," p. 22), forthiswould beto take what can onlybe an objectof knowledge "theobjectifiable ystemofexpectations") s a real object. Jauss'stheory,n otherwords,positstheaccessibilityo understanding n a perceptionof thatbackgroundagainstwhich thework of art is going to stand out. The work of art,which,perdefinition,s not knowablewithin hehorizonofexpectations f itsoriginalappearance, becomes an object of knowledge n the science (Rezeptionsds-thetik)fa subsequentepoch,which can consciously ringforthbewuf3tumachen ermag]" he real (phenomenal) object persisting hroughtime.This operationis exactly hat formof thought tigmatized yAlthusserunder the abel "historicism,"f which t s said that tsoperationof "inev-itable retrospections only scientificf the presentattains the science ofitself[auss's "consciouslybringing forth"],criticismof itself, ts self-criticism,.e., if thepresent s an 'essentialection'which makes theessencevisible"ReadingCapital,p. 122). ThatJauss'shistoricalmodel can finally echargedwith hevery essentialism" f whichhe himself as accused Marx-istaestheticsand with he aid of a Marxistphilosopherto boot!) confirmsthe intuition xpressed by Paul de Man thatthisprocedure maynot soeasily"claim to free itselffrom the coercion of a model thatis perhapsmore powerful, nd for ess controllablereasons,than itsassumed oppo-nentsbelieve" p. xi). The methodologicaldemarchehatcould indeed freehistorical tudyfrom the coercion of the historicistmodel and allow theevent to be "sprung"from hecontinuumofhistory annot ightly ismissthe alternative o historicismpresented by Althusserhimself.The un-doubted interpretive chievementsofRezeptionsdsthetikould be of evengreatertheoretical nterest fthe history f receptionwere reoriented nlightof the theoretical ratherthanempirical) conceptsof "mode of pro-duction" and "structural ausality" laboratedinReadingCapital.To saysois to recognizethenecessaryrejoining,despite Jauss'sreservations, f theprogrammeofRezeptionsdsthetikithcontemporaryMarxism. The histor-ical conjuncturethat remained a missedopportunityn Germany n the1920's mightwellbe realized todayin theprisedeposition f a theoreticalprogrammethat refuses the temptation f an aesthetic totalizationmas-querading in the guise of a materialistconception of history.Such aprogrammewouldbeingwith hechallengeposed bythe Althusserian lo-gan: "History s a processwithout telos r a subject."A slogan that de-mands a reconstitutionf theobjectofknowledgethathistory ould possi-blybe.Oregon tateUniversity MICHAEL SPRINKER

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